For some odd reason I have brief hang ups in the game for like 3-4 seconds, where it says Graphics Card Drivers were not responding and then it comes back into the game. I had it lightly overclocked, playing Far Cry 3.

Hmmmm....I wonder if it's Graphics Card not being able to handle the overclock, but why...it's only at 53 degrees underload

I have the latest AMD Catalyst Drivers...is that graphics card issue?

What you are describing there is the card crashing due to the overclock. You needs moar volts. My MSI 7950 did the same with me for a while, and also mostly with Far Cry 3. Granted I was overclocking to 1350/1650 underwater. I had my voltage up to 1300mV, with +7% power, that gave it enough voltage to be stable at 1300 and not crash again.

I haven't heard too many good things regarding overclocking with the Powercolor cards. I suggest you up the core voltage a bit, say to 1200mV, and see if it will be stable. If at 1200mV you aren't stable yet, try adding a bit more power in Afterburner. Just keep an eye on the VRM temps. From what I understand the VRM's on the Powercolor cards are not quite the same quality as on other brands like Sapphire/Asus/MSI

What you are describing there is the card crashing due to the overclock. You needs moar volts. My MSI 7950 did the same with me for a while, and also mostly with Far Cry 3. Granted I was overclocking to 1350/1650 underwater. I had my voltage up to 1300mV, with +7% power, that gave it enough voltage to be stable at 1300 and not crash again.

I haven't heard too many good things regarding overclocking with the Powercolor cards. I suggest you up the core voltage a bit, say to 1200mV, and see if it will be stable. If at 1200mV you aren't stable yet, try adding a bit more power in Afterburner. Just keep an eye on the VRM temps. From what I understand the VRM's on the Powercolor cards are not quite the same quality as on other brands like Sapphire/Asus/MSI

Thanks a lot I never touched voltage. I don't think Catalyst allows so. Do you use MSI Afterburner for altering voltages, this is what I have read at least from the past guides

I'm not sure what the stock core voltage is on the Powercolor cards. Assuming its at 1000-1150mV, you could push it up to 1200-1250mV with a bit more aggressive fan profile quite safely. That should be plenty to keep your card stable at 1000-1100mhz on the core

I'm considering upgrading just for future proofing purposes. I figure going 7970 would be too close to my current results, especially if I overclock the card. Nvidia or AMD is fine. I guess the benefit is the flexible overclock on AMD, so I guess which AMD GPU comes right after 7970 in performance?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Socks keep you warm

It's not that, for me this is the only game that crashes when overclocked. Every game even more demanding games like Hitman, Battlefield 3, GTA 4 do not crash.

That's good news. I'll definitely keep that in mind. Since I kind of benchmarked with Far Cry 3, since I played that game so many times I know places where it will lag.

I'm not sure what the stock core voltage is on the Powercolor cards. Assuming its at 1000-1150mV, you could push it up to 1200-1250mV with a bit more aggressive fan profile quite safely. That should be plenty to keep your card stable at 1000-1100mhz on the core

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spectre-

on air my msi 7950 gets to 1180/ 1510 @ 1.23 volts thats the limit

That's nice!

I will give it a shot when I hit some lag in the game, right now everything runs very smooth.
I uninstalled Bioshock Infinite which is probably the heaviest game for my GPU. I can't really speak on that game, because I still had Physx Nvidia driver installed, and it was lagging like CRAAAAAZY on the last level. When I uninstalled everything became smooth like butter.

PhysX definitely was offsetting the results negatively.

Can't really see much results, unless I do something more GPU extensive.

Hitman ran amazing from the get go.

I have Tomb Raider that I haven't played yet. Will have to see how it's running there.